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The November 2005 issue of Guitar World magazine (the one with Keith Richards on the cover) includes a CD-ROM with video of Queen + Paul Rodgers performing live! Since I don't think the magazine is carried in Malaysia, I figured I'd go ahead and bring to you their live performance of "Reaching Out" and "Tie Your Mother Down"!

'Return Of The Champions' 2CD LIVE Album Out Today!

Queen + Paul Rodgers 'Return Of The Champions' audio sampler!


The recording, captured live during the band's sold out Sheffield
Hallam Arena show back in May, delivers a virtual greatest hits collection
from both the Queen and Paul Rodgers song catalogues, mixing perennial
crowd pleasers such as Queen's 'Tie Your Mother Down', 'Radio Ga Ga',
'We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions' with Rodgers' own million sellers
'Feel Like Makin' Love', 'Wishing Well' and 'All Right Now'. Here also
for the first time we get we get live versions of some of the classic
hits recorded after the band stopped performing in 1986 and consequently
never before available on disc, among them 'The Show Must Go On',
delivered in a scorching version by Rodgers.

The album serves also as a reminder of what fine stand-alone musicians
and vocalists Brian May and Roger Taylor are; Taylor roars his way
through 'I'm In Love with My Car' and adds new poignancy to the Mercury
latter-day signature tune, 'These Are the Days of Our Lives'. Taylor also
provides the one brand new song on the set, his thought-provoking 'Say
It's Not True', a song especially written to help highlight the message
behind Nelson Mandela's 46664 Aids campaign launched by Brian May and
Roger Taylor along with Eurythmics' Dave Stewart in 2003.

May meanwhile delivers rock to make you smile on '39', sings Freddie's
torch song 'Love of My Life' with the entire audience joining in, and
delivers the mother of all guitar solos, which segues seamlessly into
the haunting riffs of the delicate-guitar work on 'Last Horizon'.

As a companion piece, the same Sheffield show also comes to DVD a month
later; with "Return of The Champions" filmed on an 18 camera shoot by
award-winning director David Mallet released October 24. As a record of
that special Hyde Park night, the DVD features the bonus track, Queen +
Paul Rodgers' fine version of Lennon's 'Imagine' which provided May,
Taylor and Rodgers a moment to reflect on that moment of time in London.

Click here
(http://email.parlophone.co.uk/a/tBDLuw$AQUBzFAY7$80AXmitk5Y/link cool to
purchase Queen + Paul Rodgers 'Return Of The Champions'

www.queenpluspaulrodgers.com
www.queenonline.com
www.paulrodgers.com

Rock guitarist Brian May and broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan will collect honours from the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Wogan, 67, is receiving a knighthood, while Queen musician May will be given a CBE.

:: Queen guitarist Brian May is being made a CBE for services to music. The 58-year-old rock star was behind hit tracks including We Will Rock You and Who Wants To Live Forever. May gave a solo performance of God Save The Queen from the top of Buckingham Palace at the Queen's jubilee celebrations in 2002. With flamboyant frontman Freddie Mercury, Queen became world famous and went on to sell more than 25 million Greatest Hits albums worldwide. ::

CBE Medal close-up

Jimmy, Commander Bri and Anita

Celebrating Freddie Mercury's 60th Birthday

September 5, 2006:
2 DVD Set "Lover of Life, Singer of Songs".
CD "The Very Best of Freddie Mercury".
"Freddie Mercury. A life, in his own Words", print and audio book.
Freddie's story, told by himself.
Proud Galleries Photographic Exhibition - 8th September to 22nd October, 2006.
ITV and BBC Radio 2 Tributes.



And, of course, a party!


Had singer Freddie Mercury survived the fearsome onset of the HIV/Aids
virus which overtook many of his generation, September 5 of this year
would have seen Freddie reach the age of 60.

No doubt Freddie would have thrown an elaborate birthday party, something he approached with zeal every year, many of which have become legend: the black and white cross-dressing Munich event; the hat party at home at Garden Lodge.

"Freddie always loved a party," says Peter Freestone, his personal assistant for 12 years. "So much so, that he would often arrange one, and
then think of an excuse for having it."

This year there will be a party: Tuesday, September 5, fans, friends, and family will celebrate with a birthday and special fundraising performance of the musical We Will Rock You. The evening's performance will feature guest appearances, script changes, and birthday presents, the presents subsequently to be auctioned in aid of The Mercury Phoenix Trust, the AIDS charity set up by the remaining members of Queen and manager Jim Beach, to fight AIDS worldwide.

The party will not be the only way in which Freddie will be remembered:

September 4th Parlophone will release a CD and special edition package of 'The Very Best of Freddie Mercury', with simultaneous release of a 2 DVD box set, 'Lover of Life, Singer of Songs', all of Freddie's solo videos and his story told by close friends.

The Official 60th Anniversary Photographic Exhibition, showcasing rare images of Freddie from both public and private collections, will take place at proud Central, 5 Buckingham Street, WC2N (www.proud.co.uk ) from 8th September-22nd October 2006.

Publication of the print and audio book, "I'm Mr Mercury", Freddie's life, told in his own words.

TV and radio tribute programmes on ITV and BBC Radio 2.

And, as we approach the date of September 5, 2006, when Queen's legendary front man Freddie Mercury might have been contemplating his bus pass, herewith a few facts about the man and events in history tied into his birth date you may not have know (a few, from a long list available):

- While Freddie plugged Moet Chandon in 'Killer Queen', his favourite
was Louis Roederer Cristal.
- Freddie's favourite hobby was shopping, mainly for other people. He loved handing out gifts of expensive perfumes, cologne, watches and jewellery.
- For Freddie, the three biggest wastes of time were eating, sleeping and shaving. He felt you could always do something better with your time.

Freddie shares his birth date with:

- Louis V111, King of France (1187)
- Louis X1V, King of France (163 cool
- Johan Christian Bach, composer (1735)
- Jesse James, American outlaw (1847)
- Raquel Welch (1940)

Events that took place on September 5:

Around the world:
- 1698, Tsar Peter 1 of Russia imposed a tax on beards.
- 1666, The Great Fire of London ended. 10,000 buildings including St Paul's Cathedral were destroyed. Amazingly, only 16 people died.

Technology:

- 1946, the day of Freddie's birth, the first electronic digital computer was put into operation. It weighed over 30 tons and occupied a room 30' x 50'.

In the same year as Freddie was born:

- the first electric blanket was manufactured.
- President Truman officially proclaimed the end of WW II.
- The first jukeboxes went into mass production.

And finally,

Freddie was one of the most technically accomplished singers to work in the pop idiom. In a list of the greatest English language singers of the 20th century compiled by BBC Radio, Freddie was ranked No.10, in a Top 10 which included Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Barbra Streisand, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole.

While Freddie Mercury dedicated the major part of his creative energies to the all-consuming project that was Queen, such was his appetite for music that not all of it could be fulfilled within the parameters of Queen. At these times Freddie ventured off into the uncharted new world of solo projects.

This special edition, released September 4, 2006 to celebrate his 60th anniversary, The Very Best of Freddie Mercury Solo, which includes a bonus CD of rare or unheard tracks, highlights those periods when Freddie
channelled his inexhaustible love of music into new musical encounters,
some intensely personal projects, others providing the excitement of collaborations with writers and performers who fired his imagination.

While most people would think Freddie's solo career began in 1985 with his Mr. Bad Guy album, it in fact began much earlier - back in 1973, with his cover versions of the Beach Boys' I Can Hear Music and Goffin-King's Goin' Back, released as the A and B sides of his first solo single under the pseudonym, Larry Lurex. Since the single disappeared without trace, it is not surprising few are aware of this inauspicious start to his solo career. Both are included here.

A number of tracks here come from the official first solo album, Mr.
Bad Guy, recorded in 1983/85 in Munich during a period when Freddie was
heavily into the club scene in the city. Freddie's love of the dance music he was surrounded by at the time shows through in tracks such as I Was Born To Love You and Living On My Own (which, remixed in 1993, gave Freddie a posthumous No.1 hit, an Ivor Novello award, and, surprisingly, the only No.1 of his solo career).

Freddie's love of theatre, and great admiration for his first pop idol, Cliff Richard, accounts for the track Time, the title song of Dave Clark's successful West End musical in which Cliff starred (the show, oincidentally, played at the Dominion Theatre, now the home to Queen's own smash hit musical, We Will Rock You).

One of the most musically fulfilling periods of Freddie's life was his musical love affair with Spanish opera diva, Montserrat Caballé. From this unlikely, but magical union, came the tracks Barcelona, which Freddie wrote for Montserrat's home city and which became the theme for the Olympic games of 1992, and the high drama of Guide Me Home, and How Can I Go On.

Although Freddie only ever released two solo albums, Mr. Bad Guy and Barcelona, there are reports that he had plans, and, indeed, had started work on a 'covers' album. This is widely considered to be the origin of one of his most popular singles, his version of The Platters' classic The Great Pretender, released first by Freddie in 1987 (when it reached No.4) and subsequently reissued in 1993.

While CD1, with a few exceptions, features mostly versions as originally recorded, the second CD of the set is a feast of rarities and new and unheard remixes. Over half of the tracks featured are 2006 mixes.

In recognition of Freddie's own passion for new musical adventures and his love of the club music scene, for this release a number of his best loved tracks were handed over to some of today's most highly regarded up and coming international remixers: Pixel82, The Glimmers, George Demure, Sunshine People, Rank 1, Star Rider, No More Brothers and The Egg, all given an open brief to take Freddie's original and rework it in their own unique and unpredictable sound and style.

On a more retrospective level, a vocal and piano version of Your Kind of Lover and Freddie's a cappella delivery of Let's Turn It On, were selected to give an informal insight into Freddie at work in the studio and underline the fact that as well as a unique writer, he was also one of the finest vocalists we will ever hear. As Brian May has written: "Freddie sang with a joy and spontaneity that came from plucking his own inspiration from the air, or his own heart. It is hard to find a parallel anywhere for this man who combined composing with such outstanding performance."

CD 1 ends with a stunningly moving version of Freddie and Mike Moran's
Guide Me Home performed by Swiss jazz pianist and Blue Note artist
Thierry Lang, a native of Freddie's final home city of Montreux, and specially arranged and recorded by Lang as his own tribute to Freddie.

Track listing CD1:
1. In My Defence (2000 Remix)
2. The Great Pretender (Original Version from 1987)
3. Living On My Own (1993 No More Brothers Radio Mix)
4. Made In Heaven (Mr Bad Guy Album Version from 1985)
5. Love Kills (Original Version from 1984)
6. There Must Be More To Life Than This (Mr Bad Guy Album Version from
1985)
7. Guide Me Home (Barcelona Album Version from 198 cool
8. How Can I Go On (Barcelona Album Version from 198 cool
9. Foolin' Around (Steve Brown Version)
10. Time (Original Version from 1986)
11. Barcelona (Barcelona Album Version from 198 cool
12. Love Me Like There's No Tomorrow (Mr Bad Guy Album Version from 1985)
13. I Was Born To Love You (Mr Bad Guy Album Version from 1985)
14. The Golden Boy (Barcelona Album Version from 198 cool
15. Mr Bad Guy (Mr Bad Guy Album Version from 1985)
16. The Great Pretender (Malouf Mix)
17 .Love Kills (Star Rider Remix)
18. I Can Hear Music (Original Version from 1973)
19. Goin' Back (Original Version from 1973)
20. Guide Me Home (Thierry Lang)

Track listing CD 2:
1. Love Kills (Sunshine People Radio mix)
2. Made In Heaven (Extended Version)
3. Living On My Own (Egg vocal Mix)
4. Love Kills (Rank 1 Remix)
5. Mr Bad Guy (Bad Circulation mix)
6. I Was Born To Love You (George Demure remix)
7. My Love Is Dangerous
8. Love Making Love (Demo)
9. Love KIlls (Pixel82 remix)
10. I Was Born To Love You (Extended Version)
11. Foolin' Around (Early Version)
12. Living On My Own (No More Brothers Extended Mix)
13. Love Kills (Glimmers re-edit)
14. Your Kind Of Lover (V & P version)
15. Let's Turn It On (Acapella)

In celebration of what would have been Freddie's 60th birthday, September 5, EMI will also release the 2-DVD set, Freddie Mercury: Lover of Life, Singer of Songs.

The Official 60th Anniversary Photographic Exhibition, showcasing rare images of Freddie from both public and private collections, will take place at proud Central, 5 Buckingham Street, WC2N (www.proud.co.uk ) from 8th September-22nd October 2006.

In addition, EMI Music will publish the print and audio book "Freddie Mercury: A Life, In His Own Words".